Good news: DevOps is in demand. Bad news: You’re still using legacy tools. Good news: Use Docker
In this article, First, we will understand the DevOps and demand of DevOps in the IT industry are, and then we will discuss the importance of Docker in the world of DevOps, including some of the best tutorials available online for learning Docker.
What is DevOps?
Basically, in the IT industry, software gets developed by the tech team, and this tech team has been subdivided between two sub-teams called the developer and the operation team. The job of the developer’s team is to develop an application using codes, once the coding is done, it needs to be handed over to the operation team whose job is to deploy the application on to the server.
It looks cool and so simple, right?
But wait for a second; it isn’t that simple.
Both the team usually conflict with several issues such as design, testing, security, dependency, environment mismatch, and many more. Due to these problems, there was a lot of “to and fro” between the developer team and the operation team. These were the major problem, and this had to be solved, and these were solved using the concept of DevOps.
The software industry usually treats DevOps as a combination of the developer and operation. A DevOps is an idea that acts as a bridge between the software development and operation team. Usually, a DevOps engineer collaborates, integrates, and communicate among the development and operations department in the organization. The primary role of a DevOps is constantly monitoring and automating every phase of the software development process. If we look at the lifecycle of DevOps, it resembles the infinity(∞) symbol.
It is a continuous process that starts with Planning, Coding, Building, Testing, Releasing, Deploying, Operating, and ends at Monitoring. These stages of the lifecycle are usually achieved with the help of DevOps tools. Git, Jenkins, Splunk, Nagios, Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Docker, and Kubernetes are the list of top trending DevOps tools.
A DevOps professional is essentially an IT professional with expertise in DevOps tools, scripting, coding, etc.
Demand in the IT industry
All over the world, the DevOps approach has helped companies a lot in speeding up their development processes. It has been found that the companies that hired DevOps professionals have seen a massive boost in their deployment cycle with fewer or no failures. Due to overwhelming growth and, therefore, the adoption of DevOps culture, it has been predicted that by the year 2021, over 50% of the fortune companies would have a huge demand for DevOps professionals.
The industry has already observed an amazing growth of 75% from the last year in the demand of DevOps engineers. Since a niche skill-set required for this profile, the compensation part for this role is also attractive.
As per the Glassdoor salary statistics, the average annual salary of a DevOps Engineer in India is around ₹6,06,445, in USA $ 99,604, in UK £ 45,679/yr and Germany € 58,211.
Click here to know the annual average DevOps salary in your country. The salary is usually higher for those candidates who have a rich set of knowledge of DevOps tools, and sometimes it also depends on your experience in the field. Overall, the career and salary aspect of DevOps engineers across the world looks highly demanding.
DevOps Tools and Docker
In the very first section, we learned that DevOps is a concept that reduces the conflicts between the developer and the operation team, and this is done with some of the DevOps tools, which are usually used by a DevOps engineer. Each DevOps tool solves a problem associated with the software development lifecycle. If you take the problem of environmental mismatch, this can be solved with the help of Docker.
Let’s first discuss the problem statement and then will discuss the solution in detail.
The Problem
An application has been developed and built by the development team and has been sent for testing. Since the environment of development and testing machines are different and thus, the application doesn’t work. This problem is called environment mismatch. Now let’s discuss the solution.
The Solution
There are two solutions to this problem, the first one is a virtual machine, and another one and the very most important one is the Docker. But the problem with the virtual machine is that it takes a lot of resources. So the left one is Docker, which is the best solution to this problem. Read this to understand the difference between VM and Docker.
How does it solve?
The Docker is a lightweight container, which replicates the same environment across multiple systems. Now developers will develop the software inside this container, and they hand over this container to the testing team. Since this container has the same environment; thus, the application will run without an issue, and the problem of environmental mismatch has been solved.
So, Docker is a tool that turns out to be a perfect fit for the DevOps ecosystem.
Why is it essential to learn Docker?
The primary objective of the Docker is to automate the application deployment process by allowing multiple containers to run on the same machine. Docker always guarantees that if an application is working well in the development environment, then that will work in the staging and production environment as well.
This helps in getting a higher level of control over all the modifications because they are made using the same Docker containers, and this, in turn, helps in achieving high productivity, high ROI, and saving cost.
Due to all these benefits, the companies have adopted the Docker at a remarkable rate. Over 35 million applications have been shipped via Docker till date, Not only this, but over 37 million Docker applications have been downloaded so far.
Every company that adopted DevOps culture uses Docker to deliver an efficient and quick application to its customers, and this is the reason the companies looking for DevOps professionals must look for the Docker specialist/professional as their key requirement in the job description.
Online Platform to learn Docker
The followings mentioned are some of the best resources available on the web. One may try either of them based on the expertise level. I am sharing the links of both the text as well as video-based tutorials, which is eligible for all types of users, i.e., beginners to master level.
🧑💻 Video-based learning
For Beginner
This course is entitled to beginners by instructor Demetrius Johnson. It is a paid course on Udemy. All the lectures of this course are simple and easy to understand. The course comes with a demo and coding exercise, which helps us to practice Docker commands and learn quickly.
From Zero to Hero
This course is freely available on YouTube uploaded by Edureka. This course is ideal for both beginners as well as professionals who want to master the containerization through Docker.
Crash Course
Yet another paid one from Udemy; This Course starts with the fundamental concepts and gradually deep dives into the depth. As the title of the course reflects, the Ideal audience would be beginners as well as professionals.
Getting Started
Getting Started with Docker is instructed by Nigel from Pluralsight. This tutorial is ideal for beginners; it helps in getting a solid understanding of the fundamentals of Docker.
Deep Dive
This course is intended for both beginners as well as professionals. This one is also from Pluralsight with instructor Nigel. The course comes up with a lot of hands-on labs and exercises. By the end of this course, one can take his/her career on to the next level.
From Beginner to Advanced
The last one in the list is Comprehensive Docker: From Beginner to Advanced a paid course by Experfy. As the name itself reflects, the ideal audience would be a beginner as well as a professional. It starts with fundamentals and covers all advances features
📚 Text-based Resources
Docker for Developers
Docker for Developers is a paid course by Arnaud Weil from Educative. The tutorial is mainly intended for developers having prior knowledge in programming or scripting languages such as .NET Core, Java, Node.JS, PHP or Python, and JavaScript, etc. It starts with very low-level details and touches to top-level without letting us get lost in any Jargon. This course is entitled to all levels of readers.
For absolute beginners
Docker Tutorial for absolute beginners is another text-based tutorials from Tutorials Point. It is freely available and explains all aspects of the Docker Container service. It also starts with very basic like installations and configuration of Dockers and gradually moves to advanced topics such as networking and registers.
For Java Developer
Docker Tutorial for Java Developer from Java Code Geeks, is the most widely read tutorials among Java developers. It is written by Andrey Redko, an experienced software developer. With this tutorial, we will be able to get our own Docker-based application up and running in minimum time. Though it is entitled to Java developers frankly speaking it, all levels of readers can get benefitted from this tutorial.
Docker 101
This tutorial is from Docker itself. This course is ideal for both beginners as well as professionals. It is a self-paced, hands-on tutorial that covers fundamentals to advanced topics such as image building and networking, etc.
Conclusion
In the end, I hope now you have a better understanding of why DevOps professionals are necessary for companies who want to bring their software products to market faster and more reliably. You also have a pretty good idea of why it is important to learn Docker and where does it fit in the world of DevOps.
